@Rogen,

The quality of the lighting you've attained is rather stunning!

Edited July 6, 20241 yr by Ray Proudfoot
Long quoted post with images removed.

6 hours ago, Rogen said:

Would you like to try out what I've configured so far ? It's basically 3 shader files and provide for the look of below (clouds excepted).

I know you’re an expert and your images are excellent. It’s something I’ll consider but not just now thanks.

12 hours ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

If one needs to remove a product from their website so as not to confuse their customers, one needs a better website or find customers that can read and comprehend what they've read!!!!!  

If this big bold lettering in RED on your purchase page doesn't stop someone from purchasing the wrong product  "THIS PRODUCT IS FOR MS 2020 ONLY" or "THIS PRODUCT IS FOR P3D ONLY"

Then maybe they should stick to smaller less complicated aircraft, then the rest of us wouldn't have to deal with this nonsense every time there may be an addon that may confuse some!!!

You know in this century, you can find warning on coffee cups about the fact that coffee can be hot and warnings on a pizza box that you need to open the box before eating your pizza. So nothing shock me anymore.

 

About this PMDG drama, history repeat. We had the same debate at the end of Fs9, FSX. It's now on P3D and in a few years, we will have it again when msfs will reach the end of the road.

Each time, we faced the same  dilema. We can stay with the current sim, still enjoy it, but we know that developers will soon or later leave the camp and products will become outdaed, not available anymore etc. Or we can follow the new kid in town but we will have to say goodbye to the hundred or thousands of $ we spent on our former sim.

Like we say in France, you can't have the butter, the money for the butter and go out with the creamer. 

15 hours ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

I'm not sure how in depth the filters go as I use reshade myself.

Same as Rogen I believe. I may take up his kind offer of help at some point. My concern would be how to handle ENVSHADE and ENVPLUS as they fix lighting and visibility issues as well as some colours.

On 7/5/2024 at 11:06 PM, David Vega said:

This latest chapter between P3D users and PMDG should be laid to rest. I'm a P3D user and while I buy and have bought PMDG products since FSX days, I'm not a PMDG groupie. We know that PMDG has even suspended selling similar products within the MSFS line not to confuse their customers. We should know that Mathijs is Mathijs and he hasn't changed just because he moved to PMDG. We also know most in the P3D community are sore at PMDG for suspending P3D development. I think we're taking this incident as an opportunity to express that frustration. Let's focus on enjoying our P3D. Better quality of life. 

They’re not “suspending” selling P3D products to avoid confusion. That’s just a rumour started by a couple of community members on the PMDG forum.

They have stopped developing for P3D and they see the P3D market as too insignificant to even bother selling products for.

I’m unimpressed by the decision, and I’m less than enthusiastic about the tone of the communication - but it’s not unexpected from PMDG, and the decision is likely financially sound even if it’s not brilliant from a community support and customer loyalty point of view.

Still want my promised 777 cockpit, though. Chance of seeing it: now dropped to 0.01%

 

15 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

@Rogen,

The quality of the lighting you've attained is rather stunning!

The lighting looks good, the blue sky doesn't look right unless it's just the screen capture and you get a different view from your monitor.

23 minutes ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

The lighting looks good, the blue sky doesn't look right unless it's just the screen capture and you get a different view from your monitor.

Relative to the default lighting and colors in P3D, it's extremely well done. P3D has improved, but basically the lighting is generally that of a wan winter day at high latitudes.

I had a reply from Mathijs Kok this morning after having to nudge him for not replying earlier. This was his reply…

”As I wrote on the forum, we do not know when or if they will come back.”

It suggests they don’t really know what they’re doing. I replied suggesting that whilst they consider what to do they make their products available and then announce a couple of months notice so anyone who wants to purchase can do so before the shutters come down.

Hhh, this response is freakin' peculiar. Is what I am saying. 

28 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I had a reply from Mathijs Kok this morning after having to nudge him for not replying earlier. This was his reply…

”As I wrote on the forum, we do not know when or if they will come back.”

It suggests they don’t really know what they’re doing. 

Hmmm…check out the number of posts on their forums over this weekend concerning questions about or reports of problems with the 777.

I think they’ve really got their hands full with their new product and their support system is going flat out to cope with what might be unexpected demand. Also, the actual plane makers appear to be working on another post release patch.

I would think you’re quite right; at this very moment they’ve effectively created a $70, paid beta test that thousands of people have joined. 

A few voices out in the relative wilderness of P3D are simply not going to be addressed in the very near future.

Expect some sort of statement from Sir Robert….soonish.

The wording won’t really matter because whatever is going on it’ll actually be your fault for mentioning it and anyway, it won’t be a problem….

You’ll be able to judge how long this “777 emergency” period lasts by how long it takes his Sir Robert to issue his edict.

On 7/6/2024 at 5:14 PM, OzWhitey said:

They’re not “suspending” selling P3D products to avoid confusion. That’s just a rumour started by a couple of community members on the PMDG forum.

You have some evidence for this?

On 7/5/2024 at 5:00 PM, micstatic said:

In fairness they delivered to you what they said they would.

And this? Not delivered as they promised.

On 7/6/2024 at 6:14 PM, OzWhitey said:

Still want my promised 777 cockpit, though.

As someone who runs a business and VERY much only enjoys running it the way I see fit, I sometimes get pushback from clients. That's OK. We are not for everyone. Call me "elitist", a "snob", etc... but no one has achieved anything great if they just listen to everyone else. You have to believe in what you do and WHY you do it. I don't pretend to know their reasons, but I suspect they are ROI-based. At some point the ROI (return on investment) becomes so negligible, you wonder why you are wasting resources on it that can be better allocated to other things. That's just reality. I run a restaurant group too... Just earlier today, I kicked out a customer who asked me to change the music we play cause he wanted "jazz or blues or easy listening... anything but rock" and while I went into the conversation with an open mind and willing to compromise a little and change things, the second he said "I am the customer, I get to tell you what I don't want to hear", that was the end of it. This isn't a jukebox and jazz is entirely off-brand. I love jazz, hell, I am a drummer and some of what I play is jazz. But don't come into my business telling me what to do. Puscifer has a song called "The Remedy" and the first line is "our home, our rules... Respect them or..." I fully subscribe to that. You don't have to like PMDG. You can stop supporting them if your expectations don't align with them. But don't try to strongarm them into something they don't want to do, whatever the reason may be. They are artists. They create content they way they see it best. If their painting isn't for you, so be it. But don't be an insolent jerk and demand things. That will just result in hostility. And those of us who appreciate punk will be proud to wear that on our sleeve. 🙂 That's all. 

Software is different.

In my experience of software development and support...

• Less purchases typically also equates to less support requirements (unless it's as buggy as hell, but then again you'd think in a mature product there should be very few (if any) issues).
• It's not as though it is taking more dev resources being a (hopefully) mature product and given they've frozen the code.
• And it's still going to take internal storage space since they've already sold x number of instances to people over a long period of time.
• The Ops managment tool would still be in use based on pre-existing sales meaning they'd be obligated to maintain that part anyway.

Yeah, it's their software and their right to do what they want, but it's a bad attitude to just dump on people without notice, such actions upset customers and a word not allowed off customer tells more people of their poor customer service experience than those who are happy, especially in this age of Information.

In the companies I've worked for we typcially gave 6 months public notice of obsolescence.

Of course the obsolete component was no longer included as part of the current releases, but was still available for those who really wanted or needed it on the basis of no dev work would be performed.

Plus they could always introduce a "maintenance" fee but that's up to them.

Cheers

 

 

4 hours ago, Rogen said:

Yeah, it's their software and their right to do what they want, but it's a bad attitude to just dump on people without notice, such actions upset customers and a word not allowed off customer tells more people of their poor customer service experience than those who are happy, especially in this age of Information.

I'm still not clear on how this is doing anything to their customers.  They haven't rendered existing purchases obsolete. They haven't announced they're ending support for existing customers of their P3D line. All they've done is remove the possibility of NEW sales. There's been no sunsetting of anything, or notice of pending obsolescence.

If there was some P3D product of theirs you hadn't bought up to now but were maybe considering for the future, I'm not sure how this warrants more than an "aww darn".

The sheer fact that they've determined immediately removing these existing products from sale completely makes business sense for them, means there's some cost somewhere involved with new P3D sales that has become unprofitable for them.

If they suddenly pulled the rug out on P3D customers and said they would no longer support those purchases or something, I would completely understand people feeling miffed.  Same for if people could suddenly no longer download their existing purchases.  But neither is the case here.  Selling something became unprofitable for whatever reason, so they stopped selling it.